


Addressing the Past

by akaeve



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2263974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaeve/pseuds/akaeve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony begins to wonder where he actually came from, His Ancestors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Addressing the Past

Addressing the Past  
Prologue

Tony had often wondered where his ancestors had come from. Well not so much where they had come from being third generation American, but before the great grandparents. He was Italian or should that be off or of Italian descent. As Ducky had once said, boys of his age still lived with “Mama.”

It had been an Italian who began the story of immigration to America, albeit with a little aide from the Spanish Crown, but Christopher Columbus had set foot on American soil in 1492. He returned with tails of fortune. 

Although Italy, as a unified nation, did not exist until 1861, the Italian peninsula had sent millions of its people to the shores of North America. These new arrivals thought of themselves as Neopolitans, Sicilians, Calabrians, or Syracuseans. They might not have understood each other’s dialects, but on arrival in the United States they became Italian Americans.  
It was something every American should do, find their roots. Most had to come from Europe basically, but DiNozzo? Tony had tried to look on the internet, in the Italian phone book, the PagineBianche, but no DiNozzo’s in Italy but he did find many Di Nuzzo’s, this got him wondering, just who was he, who had his ancestors been and how did he become who he was today.

Chapter One

“Boss, was wondering could I have some time off?”

“Paid or unpaid,” Gibbs had asked not looking up reading the report Bishop had just laid on his desk.

“Well paid would be good,” Tony replied smiling.

“Leave sheet then,” Gibbs answered now looking up and over the rim of his glasses, which were perched on his nose, faced Tony.

“Got something planned?” Tim asked in his usual friendly nosey way.

“Yep, as a matter of fact I have. I have decided to find out from whence I came,” Tony answered with all seriousness.

“Rumour has it you were Long Island,” Tim replied, “So what’s the problem.”

“Yep, but before Long Island,……Italy. I mean I am Italian, I like pizza, prosciutto and pastrami.”

“Pastrami is really Turkish or Romanian,” Tim began to explain, “Comes from the Turkish pastirma, although they do say that early references in English used the spelling “pastrama”, closer to the Romanian original. And that the modern “pastrami is an imitation of the American salami.”

“You are beginning to sound like Ducky,” Tony retorted, “But whatever, yes I did happen to reside in Long Island. It’s just I need to know before that, where my great grandparents came from.”

“I would say best place to start is ask your dad, get your birth certificates and take it from there,” Gibbs now suggested.

“Could do, but dad is always busy.”

“Then try the New York Department of Health Vital Records. Get Tim to hack for you,” Gibbs continued, pointing at Tim, who smiled the Tim smile as if to say, would be delighted.

“Boss, I would rather just go quietly about it, if you don’t mind.”

Chapter 2 Naples Italy 1906

“Giuseppe, where are you, I have to ask?” Antonio his brother pondered looking about.

“I am here, I am just getting ready for the ceremony,” Giuseppe replied, looking out over the fields of Naples.

“Maria, she is a lovely girl, but have you thought of the future?”

“My brother, I have, and Maria and I are emigrating to America. You, as my elder brother will inherit the farm; I have nothing, so we will go and see what this new land has to offer. There are many from Naples in New York, and if it works out well you could come too,” Giuseppe answered.

-oOo-

Tony began to ask his dad, what had his father been like, I mean really like.

“Junior,……………..my father,…………….your grandfather?” DiNozzo Senior had replied. “Strange man, he had a collection of buttons. Why buttons I never knew, could have been the war I suppose. That would have been Pearl Harbor…..buttons were hard to come by during the war, and I put it down to the shock.”

“Granddad fought in war at Pearl Harbor, I never knew he never talked about it, the war I mean,” Tony continued.

“Junior, coffee or a drink, I think we should discuss more.” As DiNozzo Senior took his son by the arm, “I really have no idea what this is leading to, but I will try and answer your questions.”

As the pair sat in the swanky lounge of the latest posh hotel that Tony’s dad was staying, and as they drank their coffee, Tony’s dad began to speak.

“From what I was lead to believe, and he never spoke of the horror of that day in December 1941.”

“Dad, what was your father doing in Hawaii?”

“His father, your great grandfather had a transportation business, took him some 20 years to build up but he had lorries. My father had been driving them since he knew how, tinkering, and when war was declared he volunteered his services and those of the firm. Didn’t quite work out and he got shipped to pearl. Got wounded and shipped home, back to New York.”

“But you had a sister and have a brother.”

“True your grandfather, my father, Antonio, the name was always given to the first born son, my sister Angelina and Vincenzo. Vincenzo you remember lives in Long Island had the butchers,” as Senior took a pip of the coffee before motioning to the waiter to bring something stronger. “You used to play there with your cousin Petey.”

“I remember. But my great grandparents came from where?” Tony began to ask, “Because I looked in the Italian phone book and there are no DiNozzo’s listed. So dad just who am I?

-oOo-

The crossing from Naples to New York was arduous, the winter seas strong and stormy Steerage was not good but as it was in the bowels of the ship the tossing and swaying was not so bad. So it was that in mid-March six weeks after departing Naples that Giuseppe and Maria eventually landed in New York.  
In 1906 most of the Italian immigrants, took their first steps onto American soil in a place that had become a legend, Ellis Island.  
Ellis Island had been founded as a solution to a serious social crisis. New York’s previous immigrant processing station, a decaying fortress called Castle Garden, had become a pit of corruption and theft, where new immigrants had to run a gauntlet of swindlers, pickpockets, and armed robbers before escaping with their freedom and their paperwork. Si in order to ensure a safe, controlled, and regulated entry process, the federal government took over immigrant processing and erected a set of new, purpose-built facilities on an island in New York Harbor. For many generations of Americans, and for almost all Italian Americans, Ellis Island was the first chapter of their family’s story in the United States.  
Here newcomers were numbered, sorted, and sent through a series of inspections, where they were checked for physical and mental fitness and for their ability to find work in the U.S.  
The consequences of failing an eye exam, or of seeming too frail for manual labour, could be devastating; one member of a family could be sent back to Italy, perhaps never to see his or her loved ones again. Although less than 2 percent of Italians were turned away, fear of such a separation led some immigrants to rename Ellis Island L’Isola dell Lagrime, the Island of Tears.

Chapter 3

“Sorry Junior, I have always been a DiNozzo, it was on all our paperwork,” Senior continued.

“Dad, what happened to the paperwork? I mean you moved around and granddad is dead, as are both Angelina and Luzio. I haven’t seen Petey in years. Is he still in New York?”

“As far as I know yes, he and Vincenzo used to get on well together, since Vincenzo doesn’t have any children. Always, wondered about him, never had a girlfriend, never married, I wonder about you Junior, wonder if you turned out like him.”

“Meaning, dad? And do you have Vincenzo’s number?”

“Meaning are you coming out soon, could do with a drink. Junior if you want paperwork go and see your Uncle, Vincenzo.”

-oOo-

Tony made his way to New York; it had been a while since he had actually been in the Big Apple. 

He had rung his uncle, to see if he could call. 

Excuse? None, and yes dad was still alive. Wanted to see, if he had any paperwork relating to our grandfather, grandfather Antonio. Yes he was getting old, needed to get into his ancestry. Oh Vincenzo had a box full of stuff.

Tony would drop by in a couple of days.

-oOo-

The shop seemed smaller than he had always imagined, Tony wondered how he still did business with all the big stores around. But he knew that small family butchers and deli’s, as this now appeared to have become, were all the rage. But then again Northern New Jersey, was the bub of the Gay community, maybe his father was right, Vincenzo was.

Tony gingerly entered the shop to be met by a young man.

“Can I help you?” he enquired.

Tony took his shades from his eyes in full CSI Miami fashion, and smiling the DiNozzo smile replied, “Yes I’m looking for my uncle. And you are who?”

He didn’t hear or see his uncle now enter the deli.

“Vince, this gentleman is looking for you.”

As Tony now turned to see his uncle. He had aged so much, but he still had the height of the DiNozzo’s and yes although slimmer, did look like his father.

“Thank you Pepe. Tony, how you have grown. Yes, you have your father’s traits when he was younger, but please you said you wanted to see the family paperwork, come I will open a bottle of wine and some mozzarella. I import from Italy and it sells well,” as he indicated to Pepe to carry on, and showed Tony the way through the back and upstairs to his flat. “Do not worry about Pepe, we are not lovers but I do give him lodgings.”

-oOo-

Vince indicated to the table in the kitchenette and producing two glasses and a bottle of red, uncorked and poured.

“Where would you like to start?” Vince questioned.

“The beginning would be good and of course the paperwork.”

Vince moved over to a chest and opened. It was full of old newspapers and tin boxes. Old papers now turning yellow with nicotine and age were in polythene bags.

“You still a Baltimore cop?” Vince began to ask, as he slowly took some of the bags from the chest and handed to Tony.

“Nah, been away some 12years now work for NCIS.”

“Never married? Got a girl friend? If you are like me I could get Pepe to introduce you to some friends,” Vince began to laugh. “Pepe lives here yes, I give him sanctuary and he works in the shop. I have been celibate some 5years now, but the company is good. I suppose he is the son I never had.”

“Vince, I have loved and lost. Maybe one day I will find the girl of my dreams but right now I’m doing OK,” Tony smiled as he watched Vince now open one of the bags.

 

Chapter 4

The first bag showed old photographs of Giuseppe and Maria in front what would now be called a townhouse, but back in 1906 it was a tenement. An overwhelming majority of immigrants spent some years in tenements before moving on. Families lived with families, and in some buildings there was a housekeeper, usually a widow who lived rent free but cleaned the building.

“Hey this isn’t Long Island,” Tony said as he looked through some of the photographs.

“No, when, my grandparents first set foot in America they lived in what was called “Little Italy” Mulberry Street, Manhattan. Little Italy, it was perhaps the city’s poorest Italian neighborhood,” Vince continued. “In 1910 Little Italy had almost 10,000 Italians; that was the peak of the community's Italian population,” now pulling a photograph from the bottom of a pile, “Here you can see Maria with Antonio, he was born in 1910.”

As Tony began to look through the old sepia prints he could see that life had been hard. Life in the tenements was hard. Some of the photographs showed washing hanging between building back to back, and since all the heating and cooking was done on wood or coal burning stoves, the washing was always dirty. 

“Clean Dirt,” Vince had said refilling Tony’s glass. 

“Was Antonio the only child?” Tony began to ask, as he saw that there was only boy in all the prints.

“No, and yes, Maria was not strong, and as you know, your great grandfather drove a truck for two dollars a day, saving what he could. Maria had many miscarriages. It was because of this and also the overcrowding that he eventually decided to leave Manhattan and move to Long Island. People moved from apartment to apartment as their financial conditions improved. Eventually, many moved to the suburbs or the country on Long Island.” 

“And so Giuseppe moved to Long Island?” as Tony watched Vince carefully put away the paperwork and bring out the next one. The next chapter in his great grandparents life. 

“It took him 20 years to start his own transport company,” as Vince picked up the next bag and showed Tony the family group. The ink on the back said 1930.

-oOo-

Back in “Little Italy” a Marco Macari was growing fast, the Mafia or Family had many fingers in many pies. His father Giacomo was part of the bootleggers, the people who had transported liquor during the Prohibition to the speakeasies. Giuseppe had also been a part in the transportation. This was how he had eventually made his money. But Antonio was also driving the contraband, and Marco had a sister Carlotta.

It was in the summer of 1932 that Antonio and Carlotta married. It united two families.

Tony looked down at the photograph, he now held in his hands. He had never known or knew that there had been a Mafia connection. 

As Tony looked down at the smiling wedding picture he thought of The Godfather movie. Here was Antonio marrying into the Mafioso.

He hardly heard Pepe appear and say that the shop was now closing. Tony looked at his watch and then at the empty wine bottle.

“Anthony, you are going nowhere tonight. Pepe has made pizza, Italian style and has made up the guest bed. He is going out and won’t be back tonight. So please stay, we still have much to discuss and things to show you.”

-oOo-

The three ate the pizza and had more wine; Tony was beginning to warm to Pepe. He could see a lot of himself in the young man and did begin to question his own sexuality.

Things moved on swiftly and Carlotta produced a daughter Angelina in 1934, followed by a son Anthony 1939, his father and then in 1942 Vincenzo, his uncle.

Chapter 5 Little Italy 1925

Back in Little Italy you had three choices of life, either The Mafia, the ghetto or you used your brains. There was also three ways out, it was how you died, either from a bullet, illness, or move and die of old age.

Sergio Spano was not going to follow in the footsteps of his family or cousins. He was going to make a name for himself and die of old age. Sergio became the only self-educated member of his family. He wanted nothing to do with the “Family Business”.

Sergio began small, he borrowed from “The Family” they thought him an easy touch. But Sergio bet against the Bull Market another name for the Stock Market. If the trend is up, then it’s the Bull Market, and if the trend is down then the Bear Market. Shorting a stock involved borrowing it from a broker at one price, with the promise to return those shares after a certain time. The short seller, Sergio, would then sell the borrowed shares and if the stock went down, buy them back and return the shares to the broker. Thus Sergio pocketed the difference.  
But his early success in the risky business of short-selling, changed to one of finding solid companies that were undervalued by the stock market and then holding on to them. He also turned his back on borrowing money to invest. He started to invest his own. Living a modest lifestyle didn’t hurt either.

 

As the hot summer of 1929 began to take shape, and speculation of trouble ahead had driven prices to unreasonable levels, he decided that the only way to make money was to go back to “short-sell” a particular share, meaning he would again profit from a fall, not a rise, in the price. 

Everyone said that only a fool would bet against the market, but by the time of Black Tuesday, 29th October 1929, Sergio Spano had nearly doubled his money. He found stocks trading at tremendous discounts. He knew how one could study financial statements to find stocks that were a 'dollar selling for 50 cents’. He called this the 'margin of safety’. 

Sergio Spano was now a wealthy man he had moved from Little Italy, and had a house, not a flat in a tenement in Long Island. He had married Anna and a son Luzio was born 1933.

-oOo-

The next morning Tony woke, he tried to think where he was, the sounds and he thought for a moment he was back in Baltimore. No New York. He wondered how much wine they had consumed and had he made a fool of himself. He could smell the coffee.

Tony rose and looked about, he heard a voice from the living area, “You want a shower and a shave, there are disposable razors in the cabinet and the towels are clean and fresh.”

Tony thanked Vince and made his way to the bathroom. Once refreshed Tony went to see what was for eating.

“Tony, sorry no cooked here, we do it the Italian way,” Vince smiled. “Cornetto, the filling, jam and you must try these crostata’s they are to die for I had three extra delivered just for you,” Vince said as he pointed to the table.

Tony looked at the dense, buttery crust of the tart, the fillings of amarena (sour cherry), albicocca (apricot) and the frutti di bosco (wild berry) and then thought of his waist line, but it was rude to refuse and the cappuccino looked and smelt divine. 

“I didn’t say or do anything wrong last night did I?”

“No Tony you were the gentleman but I have still more to show you and tell you. I suppose, I knew that this day would come and so I have prepared myself. Now last night we talked of Sergo and that Luzio was born 1933. Come help me clear these plates and I will see if Pepe is coping, usually at the weekend the crostata’s and the cornetto’s sell well, and then just a steady trade.”

Vince returned to see the table cleared and wiped, and Tony sitting like a child waiting for teacher to give the next lesson.

“More coffee and I will begin,” bringing over two cups of Caffe Americano this time.

“Now Luzio, was to follow in his father’s footsteps. He studied accountancy and became a shrewd business man. He started in the accounts department and worked his way up the ladder to become CFO and finally CEO of a Fortune 500 Company. That was until the crash of 2001, and yes I mean the Twin Towers. After recovering from many lows, the 9/11 attacks finally slid the indices into steady decline reaching the lows they had last reached in 1997 and 1998. This lead to Luzio, now lose control of the Fortune 500 Company he was running as CEO.” 

“And this lead to my uncle, to be found digging up a golf course, looking for the mole people?”

“Yes. But now enough of Angelina and her family we need to get back to yours,” as Vince now rose and took this time, a leather folder from the chest replacing the one of Luzio and Angelina.

Chapter 6

“Now, where is the best to start this,” as Vince looked down at the papers now in a heap on the table. “Back to your father; Anthony was always the middle child, always wanting to please but then again the eldest son. He always enjoyed the good things in life and I suppose slightly spoilt.” Vince looked at Tony for reaction.

“Your father met a young woman in 1968 he was a little older than she was, but as always your father the charmer. He didn’t know at the time that this English blonde rose, who was to become his wife, your mother, in fact came from money.”

“Mother had money? Always thought it was the Paddington oil money.”

“Your mother Elizabeth, Becky, as she liked to be called, pity she died so young but she actually took over the running of my father’s company, the one my grandfather had started. Along with help from Luzio she sold it. She set up trust funds for Antonio’s three children and for his two grandchildren, Petey and yourself. She and Luzio also invested money in some stock and shares.”

“Trust fund, why have I not heard about this?” Tony now questioned.

“Tony, your father is not the astute business man he appears. He squanders money. Becky set up trust funds giving each of Antonio’s children an “annual allowance”, what we did with that was our business. Mine is this building. Your dad would sometimes waste his, and it was gone in a couple of months. It isn’t or hasn’t, been the first time your father has been bankrupt,” as Vince looked Tony in the eye he took a deep breath and continued.

“Your mother died when you were 8, she had cervical cancer, but it was her heart that gave out….” as Vince now handed Tony the death certificate.

“We were watching a film when she died,” as Tony took it and looked thoughtful. “I never really thought of it being a child, but what happened then, was I was shipped to boarding schools and summer camps. And I remember my second year at boarding school I had to leave, I never knew why, until not so long ago and he once said, he had cut me off in his will when I was 12,” Tony now whispered.

“Then that would be when he had lost everything again. But the father you know isn’t all bad. He loved your mother and although he has married many times and you had many step-mothers it wasn’t that he didn’t love you, he did….it was just he loved your mother too and no-one was good enough to replace your mother.

Tony now looked at Vince in horror, he had never thought of it like that, and then Tony thought of Gibbs, and how Shannon had been his only love, as Elizabeth had been to his dad. Tony began to feel bad; he had always thought it was for his own gain. “Vince,” Tony now asked, “When grand-dad died I was left shares but they were worthless, was that another bankruptcy?”

“Yes, Luzio had been putting money into the new dot.com stocks and had given advise to both your father and grandfather…………..they weren’t to know the bubble would burst in late 1999, in fact we all lost money.” 

“But my mom, you said, set up a trust fund for me.”

“Yes, your mother, Becky, the trust funds……………..you and Petey, do not get anything until you reach 45yrs old.”

“What…………….why,” Tony now bellowed.

“Responsibility…………and also your mother set up a fund, a special fund with her own money for you. It matures when you reach 50 or when you marry.” 

“Vince, how do you know all this and does Petey know?”

“I am my father’s son too, but he trusted me with this information father knew that one day you would want to know where you came from. Your mother trusted me with her life. Neither Petey nor your father know of your mother’s legacy to you.”

“But 50, come on,” Tony now wailed sitting back his hands behind his head.

Vince just smiled and looked at Tony, “Responsibility, you are your father’s son,” now laughing.

“Where is Petey these days? And I suppose with him being older than me, is probably living the high life somewhere,” Tony now muttered looking angrily at Vince.

“See responsibility, but yes and Petey followed in his father’s footsteps and is a broker now with some financial company he is an investor as he likes to be called, in Shanghai. He has married and divorced, but has a lover in Bangkok.”

“Vince what happens to all this money if I don’t marry or I die?” Tony now questioned.

“It is given to charity, what ones I don’t know, but your cousin Crispin in England, his lawyer has the details I believe.”

“So Crispin knows about my legacy?”

“No, I just get an email from the lawyer now and again asking if you and your dad are still alive.”

“But Vince you still haven’t really actually answered my original question where did my great grandparents come from?” Tony now asked, facing his uncle and doing his interrogation stare.

“Ok, but I am going to ask Pepe, to close the shop and we will have a late lunch, and Tony when I do show you the final piece of the jigsaw, I think you will need a bottle of wine to go with the ravioli,” Vince smiled kindly, as carefully gathered the papers together and placing then back in the folder, rose, and placed then in the chest. As he turned, Tony noticed that in his hand he had a black leather zipped pouch.

“Tony I may be away a while helping Pepe, but please take your time to read, I will be in the shop when you are ready,” Vince added as he now handed Tony the pouch, and walked out the door.

Chapter 7

Tony stared at the pouch, he had come this far so this was it, as he smiled to himself, was he a Smith or some other name, would this be the final piece of the jigsaw, as he carefully unzipped the bag and laid the contents on the table.

There were no passports back in 1906. What Tony saw were Giuseppe and Maria, in ageing sepia photographs, on a boat waving, to Tony surmised their families. There was the name of the ship and then the all-important shipping papers and two tickets but the names on them but not his own. As he picked up the next document, it was a letter of introduction from the mayor of the village. Someone had translated. Basically, it was not only an introduction, it was a reference. Giuseppe and Maria were well liked.

-oOo-

Ellis Island 1906

“Don’t be afraid Maria, we are almost there,” as Giuseppe held his wife’s hand. “We are young and healthy.”

“I just hope so, and we do have friends already here.”

Even for those who made their way successfully through the battery of inspections, Ellis Island was generally not a pleasant experience. The regulations were confusing, the crowds disorienting, the officials rushed, and the hubbub of countless competing languages must have been jarring on the nerves. The moment of departure, when successful immigrants boarded ferries for New York City or destinations further west, came as a tremendous relief.

The pair now stepped forward, seeing the final step, their future. However, each new arrival had to have their names entered in the island’s official registry book. Because of the rush, the echoing noise of the vast Registry Hall, and many registrars’ unfamiliarity with European languages, some immigrants found themselves leaving with new, shorter, “American” versions of their names, a lasting dubious gift from Ellis Island.

The official looked at the couple and in his broad “American” accent shouted “DiNozzo?”

“Si, Di Nuzzo” his great grandparents replied, “Sì, stiamo andando questo in dirizzo,” as they pointed to an address in Manhattan.

“Ok, Mr and Mrs “DiNozzo,” you are now in the country of the free,” as the official wrote their names on more papers before stamping them, handing them to Giuseppe and pointed to another door. The pair clutching the paperwork not seeing the change walked through the door, and into the arms of their friends.

-oOo-  
Tony sat back in the chair and smiled. Yes someone had been here before him. Was it Petey or had it been Vince himself. All he could see was the A4 sheet of paper with addresses and telephone numbers all Italian, all but one had been crossed out. There was one that remained in modern day biro or ball point blue pen it was ringed.

Tony rose and went to the landline that was in the room, he hoped Vince wouldn’t mind, but there had been a look in Vince’s eye and a slight smile on his face as he had left the room to help Pepe.

He took the phone from the cradle and sat back down with the phone, taking a deep breath he dialled the number, someone had ringed in pen. He listened to the dialling tone and then someone answer in Italian.

“Hi, good evening,” Tony began to say, “You don’t know me but my name is Anthony DiNozzo Junior, I got your number from my uncle, Vince DiNozzo.” Tony listened as the man said something in Italian and then an older sounding gentleman spoke…………………

“Anthony………..I was wondering when you would call…………………”

The End


End file.
